elements
by TheAuthor07
Summary: she's not perfect, so she surrounds herself with elements of perfection.


**title; elements.  
words; 2,781.**

She's a perfectionist.

She's not perfect, so she surrounds herself with elements of perfection.

(Nate's perfect, sandy hair, blue eyes and a dazzling smile – he tends to her every, nearly every, need and kisses her goodnight/morning. Together, they _can _be perfection. They _could_ be beautiful… if it wasn't for his other half.

Serena's perfect – she's shiny, like crystal. And everyone's attracted to shiny things. She glitters and twirls and charms the world with a smile, finding her way through life with hideously loud laugh. She's the epitome of perfection. She _is_ beautiful… no one lets her down.

Chuck, in his own twisted way – perverted, may it be – is perfect. Perfectly broken, and harnesses his perfect traits. He cuts with precision, knowing exactly where to slice, what buttons to press to make you bleed, to make you break. He could persuade the world to owe him a lifetime. In his own _specialized _way, he's an angst-y perfection.

Her mom – she doesn't need to say more.

Her dad – he's sweet, kind man. One who she can't fault.

They're all perfect, and they suffocate her with imperfections.

And – ha, ha – she's only ripping out the pages and re-writing the scenes to work in her own favour, because that's who she is, and when they backfire – like they normally do – and the whole world turns its back on her, she's left rubbing her cold arms and nursing a bleeding heart.)

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Rain rolls down her windows (_and oh, it's just so pretty, and it sparkles_), she tugs at the hem of her dress and runs her hand over the silk. She wonders if Nate will look at her with starry eyes, or if her mother will tell her she's beautiful.

(she goes to the bathroom, and sticks a toothbrush down her throat.)

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Nate holds an umbrella above her head, and takes her hand to help her out of the limo. (Nate's always so caring, and sweet, and kind, and he treats her like she's breakable. She likes it. It makes her feel like one of those porcelain dolls with the pretty painted faces.) he doesn't let go of her hand until they're inside the building.

Serena breezes over to them, like the end of a storm and Nate shifts the umbrella so it works better for blonde hair, and _fuck_ hers is going to frizz.

(Chuck approaches them with his own umbrella – like the fucking girl he is – and she's a little drier and maybe there won't be a wardrobe malfunction after all. She doesn't express any gratitude and he doesn't ask for it. It's their unspoken agreement.

He walks beside her until they reach the door.)

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Constance is decorated with sparkles and glitter (and fuck it's so much like Serena. It _hurts_.), Nate glances at her three times, then Serena entertains him for a while on the dance floor (as friends, _only _as friends. She's only not dancing with them because her heels are hurting her ankles – yes, already, she can't believe it either – not because she doesn't want to intrude on her _boyfriend_ and _best friend_ dancing.)

Chuck stands off to the side with her and eyes a redhead standing alone at the refreshments table.

He looks at Blair through the corner of his eye.

(he stays put.)

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Halfway through the dance, Blair slips off to the bathroom. (she and Nate have danced a grand total of five times, and he and Serena have been dancing since the beginning of the night – so yeah, that's annoying. Chuck entertained himself, as per usual because that's what he's good at, and she feels her life spinning into an apocalypse.)

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She locks the main bathroom door, and checks under every stall.

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(It's empty.)

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But you know, it's only for 'just incase'.

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Out of her purse, she grabs her lip gloss. She applies it, looking at nothing and when she catches a glance of herself in the mirror. She dry heaves. Once, twice and then she's spilling her guts into the bathroom sink.

(That one's an accident.

Honest.

She thinks someone's spiked the punch.)

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Five minutes later she returns to the ball room.

Chuck stands there looking for something. Nate and Serena dance. She coughs into her hand, and grabs something vaguely resembling water from the refreshments table. She takes two solid gulps and tries to ignore the tickle in the back of her throat.

Serena waves at her happily from the dance floor, her face lit in a glow of amber that shines throughout the place, Nate looks at her once and offers her a small, polite smile. She watches enviously as Serena's milky, clear skin stretches into a grin. (she sees the love in Nate's eyes when he looks at Serena, but _shh_, she doesn't want to do into that now because, well…

She just doesn't.)

She coughs into her hand some more.

Chuck comes over.

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She blinks twice, then asks him to repeat.

He sighs, "dance with me." A look of bewilderment crosses her face, she knows and his mouth twists into a smirk. She tries to keep her eyes from glittering, because God knows she's only a last resort, besides she stronger than this (and she doesn't want her mascara to run), "please I _need_ you – " and her heart _maybe_ flutters on need (because _someone_ needs her, even if said _someone_ is _Chuck Bass_… It's not like it makes her day or anything), " – to make that blonde over there jealous."

He waves a hand behind him.

She agrees because she's needed, and needed can easily turn into wanted. (plus she _needs_ Chuck to make Nate jealous, what you can't have you want, really, it's just human nature and she's disappointed in herself that she figure it out before.)

(When they're dancing she looks behind them, and the only blonde she sees is Mandy who not only has a boyfriend – who she _loves_ – but hasn't even spoken to Chuck before. She knows, because he complained about her once. "She has amazing boobs – " and she abruptly stopped him from talking about Mandy's impressive double D cup.)

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She coughs and coughs (and blows your house down), and feels like she's drowning and choking. So she runs to the bathroom, and someone (a lot of people stare) follows her into the ladies (like the perve he _really_ is).

She hunches over the sink and coughs.

The inside of her throat is moist, and she gags a few times. (it feels like her entire existence is being ripped apart along with her lungs because he can't be _in_ here. He just _can't_. Not now, Not ever.)

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A soft pattering hits the roof and the porcelain sink.

She hunches her shoulders so he doesn't see, because she can almost guarantee what happens next (but it doesn't), so she runs the tap to wash away what isn't there and when she stops coughing up her lungs (ew.) she swipes some paper towels from the dispenser, and wipes her chin (you know, 'just incase').

(Chuck escorts her back into the ballroom without a word.

unspoken agreement, remember?)

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Her throat still feels closed up when they get back to the ballroom.

Nate comes over with concern eyes, and despite everything it makes her happy to see him there. He laces their fingers together and presses a kiss into her temple. (He doesn't ask her if she's okay, but after a while, he asks if it's okay if he can leave her for just a 'couple of minutes'. She grants him that, of course. She's just too tired to say no.)

Chuck stands with her, feigning disinterest.

He stands watching Joanne (redhead).

(if you looked closer, and closer again, you'd see him watch her out the corner of his eye. _If_ you looked closer, you can see, that he _maybealmostcertianly _cares.)

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She grabs Chuck's arm. (it's only to keep her steady, you idiot.)

She coughs into the paper towel.

Her eyes slip in and out of focus, and stumbles blindly into Chuck still spluttering into the paper towel. Chuck tenses, alarmed, and grips the tops her arms tight (_too tight_), but she still feels like she's going to fall. The ground, she feels is slipping away from her, and her head goes limp and with hazy eyes she watches the ceiling as she chokes, and _fuckfuckfuck_ she can't _breathe_. She hears gasps, and when her heads been yanked back up she can vaguely see a bubble of a crowd around her.

She's suddenly slumped over a table, in a chair, whilst she vaguely hears Chuck's muffled voice saying things like ambulance (and why does he have to sound so far away).

She chokes and gurgles into the table, red splashes over the posh linens and feminine fingers grip her hand like she's going to disappear. (She can hear Serena, babbling nonsense about, how she said 'it was only one time and that it was fine. That it was an accident'. And come on, she _really_ said those things – she must have really wanted Serena to disappear, she thinks bitterly.)

A buzz rings around her ears, and the music's stopped. (Or she _thinks_ it's stopped.) She can sense the bodies gathering around her, and _shit_, not here, oh _please_, fucking hell not now.

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She's in a semi conscious state, when the paramedics arrive.

(She's gasping for breath, now that the coughing has died down, and the place an oxygen mask over her face that makes her feels claustrophobic. She can hear Chuck and Nate barking at their sorry asses for taking to long. And all she can hear from Serena are choked sobs.)

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They want to take her out on a stretcher.

She won't hear of it.

(Because, hello, she can walk, she has legs and she's not going to be embarrassed anymore in front of all these people.)

So now she pads around like a mental patient with no shoes (they – the paramedics – didn't want to have her collapse and break her ankle or something, _idiots_, she's been walking around in high heels since she was twelve. She's a pro.), an oxygen mask (yeah, she can't believe she still has to wear it either, it doesn't even match her dress.), Nate and Chuck holding both her arms as they steadily walk toward the exit, Serena following in a babble of tears and the medics trailing after her.

(she keeps her head high, and ignores all the stares around her. _She_'s in the centre of it all now, and that's all she really, ever thinks about.)

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When she gets _in _to the ambulance (finally).

She feels so tired, and drained, she feels as if she can sleep for eight, very _long_, years. Nate sits in with her, and she vaguely (or thinks she) hears Serena say he'll call her mom, (Ha, like that would get her out of a business meeting, she can imagine it now. But she might come, it's Serena calling. _After all_.) Chuck says he'll get the limo and he and Serena will meet them up there.

The ambulance doors slam shut.

She falls asleep.

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When she wakes up, she's in a hospital bed, in a hospital gown?

(first, she wants to know who the _fuck _changed her so she can sue their sorry asses, second, she wants a toothbrush – and honest, it's only to brush her teeth. Serena's drooling on the seat next to her bed, Chuck's standing and watches out the dark window and Nate sits on her other side. He's asleep too.)

"You're Moms on her way."

He says and doesn't turn his head.

She sighs, and goes back to sleep because in a few hours, all hell will break loose.

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When her Mom comes, she brings her cell phone and from the moment she arrives she spends an hour trying to calm down one client who is incessantly babbling on about a dress that's not needed until next month.

Blair isn't surprised.

Every time a nurse comes in to check on her (which is twice in that hour), they ask 'Ms. Waldorf' if she would kindly put her phone away, this is a hospital. Her mother fights with the staff twice that hour, and she sinks into the pillows embarrassed while Chuck tries to hide his smirk.

(Nate and Serena are deep sleepers. She remembers when they would stay at each others houses, she and Chuck would draw on their faces with permanent markers and take pictures for later blackmailing purposes. Chuck remembers too, and stifles another vindictive smirk.

She still has some of the pictures in a box under her bed.

It's the 'Blair and Chuck, blackmail box.' They made it when the were ten, hush, don't make fun. It's their little secret, Chuck let her write her name first, after betting that she couldn't slide down the banister of her stairs. She did. And no matter how many times Chuck protested that 'Chuck and Blair' _sounded_ better, Blair won the bet fair and square and they've been playing these games ever since.

She liked 'Chuck and Blair' too. But she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of winning – she did after all get scolded by her father when he caught her flying down the stairs and goodness knows what speed.)

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She goes back to sleep again.

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When she wakes up, Serena is crying, Nate is silent, her mother is shocked, and Chuck stands with his hands in his pockets. (it's a defense mechanism, because if you look really close, you can see he's _shit_ scared, because she's just as fucked up as he is.) She keeps her eyes half closed as a nurse talks, and catches words like 'tear', 'oesophagus', 'caused', 'deliberate' and 'purging'.

She opens _her_ eyes, to eight staring back at her.

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**end**

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**A/N; because they went no where with the bulimia storyline, i decided to venture off on my own ;) anyway, thank you to all of you who made through to the end. Obviously not my best work, but writing something terrible once and while is good for creativity ;) well, that's my excuse anyway haha. yeah, so** _review _**(and i'll give you cookies.) **


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